Jan 2009
Does your gear travel well?
31/01/09 16:41 Filed in: Travelling
TRAVELLING WITH CAMERA GEAR
by
Vi Wilson
Just about every photographer who travels is faced with the dilemma of what gear to pack. Ultimately there is always a trade-off – which lens/es, which camera body, tripod, etc.
On a recent (2005... still shooting film then) excursion to Antarctica I packed the following lenses:
After the first couple of days, I realized that changing lenses in that hostile environment was not ideal.
Wind and misty rain for much of the time I was there was not the only hazard.
Where do you put your bag (so you can change a lens) when the ground is covered with penguin guano or seal poop?!
In the end I resorted to using the 70-200mm lens on one camera body, and the 24-85mm lens on the other. I did carry the other lenses in my camera bag “just in case”, but all that, plus tripod, and being rugged up like a Michelin man, wearing gum boots for good measure, made it a fairly challenging exercise.
I was still shooting film at the time, and often wished that I could have changed the ISO with the press of a button. Added to my arsenal of gear was an Olympus 2.1 mp Camedia (now a dinosaur) but on the odd occasions that I used it, some very good pics resulted.
MOVING ON TO DIGITAL
More recently on a trip to New Zealand, I packed my Sony Alpha 700, with a Sony 16–105mm 3.5–5.6 lens, plus a Minolta 75–300mm 4.5–5.6 lens.
On the whole, the Sony is a great ‘walk about’ lens and covered most situations, though it does show a bit of chromatic aberration at some settings. However, the convenience factor was significant as we were touring with another couple who were not photographers. I hardly used the 75-300mm lens and I didn’t even pack the tripod!
I love the quality of the 70-200mm 2.8 lens, but it is heavy, and that quite often comes into the equation when I am packing. However, with a trip to Africa planned for later this year, I may just have to bite the bullet and take it! Tripod? Don’t know. With anti-shake in both camera bodies, and in the 70-200mm lens, coupled with bright light, I should be able to hand hold. The other lenses I propose to take will be the Sony 16-105mm and probably a Minolta 100-400mm 4.5-6.7 which I have just purchased secondhand.
JUST FOR WOMEN
A recent purchase from Cameras Direct is a Jill.E medium-sized camera bag (for women). In most situations it is proving to be extremely useful and convenient as it will take two camera bodies, three lenses (not the 70-200mm 2.8), filters, batteries and cards plus some personal items. It can be taken on board as a carry-on. Tripod (if I take it) gets packed in my suitcase.
With all the security measures in place for travel, both domestically and internationally, it makes a lot of sense to pack light, and in a way that will ensure speedy progress through security checkpoints.
Happy travelling!
Vi Wilson
(Note from Ed. I hope to include similar stories from other members in the near future, so if you are planning a big trip, keep tuning in to learn from the experiences, good and bad, from each of the contributors. Thanks to Vi for kicking off this segment)
by
Vi Wilson
Just about every photographer who travels is faced with the dilemma of what gear to pack. Ultimately there is always a trade-off – which lens/es, which camera body, tripod, etc.
On a recent (2005... still shooting film then) excursion to Antarctica I packed the following lenses:
- Minolta 100mm 2.8 Macro,
- Minolta 70-200mm 2.8
- 2 x converter for above
- Tamron 28–200mm 3.8–5.6
- Minolta 24–85mm 3.5–4.5.
After the first couple of days, I realized that changing lenses in that hostile environment was not ideal.
Wind and misty rain for much of the time I was there was not the only hazard.
Where do you put your bag (so you can change a lens) when the ground is covered with penguin guano or seal poop?!
In the end I resorted to using the 70-200mm lens on one camera body, and the 24-85mm lens on the other. I did carry the other lenses in my camera bag “just in case”, but all that, plus tripod, and being rugged up like a Michelin man, wearing gum boots for good measure, made it a fairly challenging exercise.
I was still shooting film at the time, and often wished that I could have changed the ISO with the press of a button. Added to my arsenal of gear was an Olympus 2.1 mp Camedia (now a dinosaur) but on the odd occasions that I used it, some very good pics resulted.
MOVING ON TO DIGITAL
More recently on a trip to New Zealand, I packed my Sony Alpha 700, with a Sony 16–105mm 3.5–5.6 lens, plus a Minolta 75–300mm 4.5–5.6 lens.
On the whole, the Sony is a great ‘walk about’ lens and covered most situations, though it does show a bit of chromatic aberration at some settings. However, the convenience factor was significant as we were touring with another couple who were not photographers. I hardly used the 75-300mm lens and I didn’t even pack the tripod!
I love the quality of the 70-200mm 2.8 lens, but it is heavy, and that quite often comes into the equation when I am packing. However, with a trip to Africa planned for later this year, I may just have to bite the bullet and take it! Tripod? Don’t know. With anti-shake in both camera bodies, and in the 70-200mm lens, coupled with bright light, I should be able to hand hold. The other lenses I propose to take will be the Sony 16-105mm and probably a Minolta 100-400mm 4.5-6.7 which I have just purchased secondhand.
JUST FOR WOMEN
A recent purchase from Cameras Direct is a Jill.E medium-sized camera bag (for women). In most situations it is proving to be extremely useful and convenient as it will take two camera bodies, three lenses (not the 70-200mm 2.8), filters, batteries and cards plus some personal items. It can be taken on board as a carry-on. Tripod (if I take it) gets packed in my suitcase.
With all the security measures in place for travel, both domestically and internationally, it makes a lot of sense to pack light, and in a way that will ensure speedy progress through security checkpoints.
Happy travelling!
Vi Wilson
(Note from Ed. I hope to include similar stories from other members in the near future, so if you are planning a big trip, keep tuning in to learn from the experiences, good and bad, from each of the contributors. Thanks to Vi for kicking off this segment)
|
Sold to the first bidder
25/01/09 13:11 Filed in: For Sale Items
I have added a new For Sale section to the web site.
We all have bits and pieces we don’t use anymore, or maybe we upgrade our cameras and have digital format lenses no longer suitable for full frame models.
Whatever your reasons, this could be a good forum to invite members to purchase your cared for items.
As a fund raising effort, I have suggested that for items under $100, a $5 donation is given to the club after completion of the sale and for items over $100, a $10 dollar donation. What goes around comes around.
I have kicked off proceedings with a lens offer. I am also trying a beta plug-in for the web software that I am using. It looks very interesting but is having a little text formatting glitch with the bullet points. Not quite sure what is happening here but will persevere with it in the interests of science.
by
David Magahy
We all have bits and pieces we don’t use anymore, or maybe we upgrade our cameras and have digital format lenses no longer suitable for full frame models.
Whatever your reasons, this could be a good forum to invite members to purchase your cared for items.
As a fund raising effort, I have suggested that for items under $100, a $5 donation is given to the club after completion of the sale and for items over $100, a $10 dollar donation. What goes around comes around.
I have kicked off proceedings with a lens offer. I am also trying a beta plug-in for the web software that I am using. It looks very interesting but is having a little text formatting glitch with the bullet points. Not quite sure what is happening here but will persevere with it in the interests of science.
by
David Magahy
Bond Nightshoot
23/01/09 11:44 Filed in: Club News
A big turn out of enthusiastic new and potentially new members joined the group at Bond University for a night shoot on the January Practical Night.
It rained... didn’t hinder the brave but some of the wooses (like me) decided against getting the gear too wet. We shot from the safety of cover. Call it experience if you like. Or maybe just boring...
We split into groups with experienced members like Jeff, Ken, Brian and yours truly passed on our wisdom to the younger enthusiasts. It’s great to see so many with their newly found passion.
More of the same I say. I really believe this is what new and older members need to have. Time to use their camera with the guidance of someone who has been round the traps a few times. I overheard discussions on compositional suggestions, aperture selection, and other topics.
by David Magahy
It rained... didn’t hinder the brave but some of the wooses (like me) decided against getting the gear too wet. We shot from the safety of cover. Call it experience if you like. Or maybe just boring...
We split into groups with experienced members like Jeff, Ken, Brian and yours truly passed on our wisdom to the younger enthusiasts. It’s great to see so many with their newly found passion.
More of the same I say. I really believe this is what new and older members need to have. Time to use their camera with the guidance of someone who has been round the traps a few times. I overheard discussions on compositional suggestions, aperture selection, and other topics.
by David Magahy
January Minutes
09/01/09 08:37 Filed in: Committee
SUMMARY OF THE MINUTES FROM THE JANUARY 2009 COMMITTEE MEETING
These summaries will appear in the blog each month as soon after the meeting as time permits. In future months you will be able to access the previous entries by clicking on the Committee category on the right hand sidebar. (DM)
The Committee has spent a lot of time devising the program for the coming year
and we hope you will enjoy the activities we have planned. Some of the meeting
times and locations are yet to be determined, but this is advance notice of what is
coming up and some of the outings and practical nights should tie in with
forthcoming competition set subjects. (It is here)
As there will not be a practical night available before the Brisbane
Urbanscape/Bridges outing, keep in mind the opportunities this trip will offer for
converting colour images to mono. We have a practical night planned for this in
May with the Monochrome competition in October. Architecture lends itself well
to mono, as the shadows and lines can create dramatic images. It is one time
when shooting outside early morning or late afternoon times can be used to
advantage.
On practical nights we have tried to include plenty of hands-on activities with cameras, as
there are many newer members who would like to get to know their cameras
better.
JANUARY PRACTICAL NIGHT (22nd)
This will be a night shoot at Bond University.
Meet at the big arch near the lake at 6.30pm and remember to bring a tripod, cable release if
you have one, mid to wide angle lens, insect repellent and a torch. Lorraine
Jones has very kindly prepared an information sheet which will be a great help
for this shoot. View it here Thank you Lorraine!
BBQ ON JANUARY 25TH (SUNDAY)
Meet at the eastern end of Winders Park (at the BBQs) on Duringan Street Currumbin. The meeting time is 7:30am.
A Hunt & Shoot will commence at 8:00am and finish at 9:30am. Jeff has
prepared a list of clues which will be handed out on the day. The items to be
photographed can be found in the area between the Gold Coast Highway bridge
over Currumbin Creek, and the M1 bridge. After the Hunt & Shoot we will gather
for a BBQ. It should be a lot of fun, so do plan on attending. If you can bring a
salad to share, it would be appreciated. BYO drinks. GCPS will provide the
meat and the bread rolls.
Our Annual Exhibition at Robina will be held from 1–14 July. A working bee
will be held just before 1 July to frame the works to be hung.
The Joint Weekend with Queensland Camera Group and Retro Group has been
set down for the weekend of 9–11 October. We have a location in mind and as
soon as details are finalized we will let members know.
We are greatly in need of an Events Co-ordinator as the Management
Committee already has a heavy work load. If you feel you could take on this job,
(which is not onerous), please see one of the Management Committee at a
meeting or email one of them.
For those members unfamiliar with meeting locations, maps follow.
Vi Wilson
Secretary
These summaries will appear in the blog each month as soon after the meeting as time permits. In future months you will be able to access the previous entries by clicking on the Committee category on the right hand sidebar. (DM)
The Committee has spent a lot of time devising the program for the coming year
and we hope you will enjoy the activities we have planned. Some of the meeting
times and locations are yet to be determined, but this is advance notice of what is
coming up and some of the outings and practical nights should tie in with
forthcoming competition set subjects. (It is here)
As there will not be a practical night available before the Brisbane
Urbanscape/Bridges outing, keep in mind the opportunities this trip will offer for
converting colour images to mono. We have a practical night planned for this in
May with the Monochrome competition in October. Architecture lends itself well
to mono, as the shadows and lines can create dramatic images. It is one time
when shooting outside early morning or late afternoon times can be used to
advantage.
On practical nights we have tried to include plenty of hands-on activities with cameras, as
there are many newer members who would like to get to know their cameras
better.
JANUARY PRACTICAL NIGHT (22nd)
This will be a night shoot at Bond University.
Meet at the big arch near the lake at 6.30pm and remember to bring a tripod, cable release if
you have one, mid to wide angle lens, insect repellent and a torch. Lorraine
Jones has very kindly prepared an information sheet which will be a great help
for this shoot. View it here Thank you Lorraine!
BBQ ON JANUARY 25TH (SUNDAY)
Meet at the eastern end of Winders Park (at the BBQs) on Duringan Street Currumbin. The meeting time is 7:30am.
A Hunt & Shoot will commence at 8:00am and finish at 9:30am. Jeff has
prepared a list of clues which will be handed out on the day. The items to be
photographed can be found in the area between the Gold Coast Highway bridge
over Currumbin Creek, and the M1 bridge. After the Hunt & Shoot we will gather
for a BBQ. It should be a lot of fun, so do plan on attending. If you can bring a
salad to share, it would be appreciated. BYO drinks. GCPS will provide the
meat and the bread rolls.
Our Annual Exhibition at Robina will be held from 1–14 July. A working bee
will be held just before 1 July to frame the works to be hung.
The Joint Weekend with Queensland Camera Group and Retro Group has been
set down for the weekend of 9–11 October. We have a location in mind and as
soon as details are finalized we will let members know.
We are greatly in need of an Events Co-ordinator as the Management
Committee already has a heavy work load. If you feel you could take on this job,
(which is not onerous), please see one of the Management Committee at a
meeting or email one of them.
For those members unfamiliar with meeting locations, maps follow.
Vi Wilson
Secretary
Setting up your own website
03/01/09 21:39 Filed in: Education
EVER THOUGHT ABOUT A WEBSITE FOR YOURSELF?
by our new Pres...Jeff Hutchison
For those who are interested here is my experience of trying to set up a web site when you don’t know a razoo about anything web related.
I have all these pics that just sit on my puter, some I even print out, sell the very occasional one, hang on the wall or give away, some sit in a drawer never to see the light of day again.
OK I put them in the club comps and I put them in the odd comp here and there and exhibition if I think they are good enough but I still have them all, what to do with them was the eternal question.
I know, I’ll put them on a web site somewhere.
Don’t trust any I see that are for free!!!!. I’ll get my own.
What’s the cost? what’s involved? Where do you start? I don’t know anything about HTML aaaaagh!.
So it sits in the back of my mind for a loooong time.
Well, after a couple of bourbons one night it comes back into my head, so, Google, everyone’s best friend on the web, is put to use to find a web site for me to utilise, but where to start, how does it all work? Which is the easiest program to use? How much does it cost? Am I being ripped off? Aaaaarg!
FIRST, A URL (like I know what that means...)
After a couple of weeks studying this site and that site I discover that first you have to have a URL, this is a web site name. Is this easy? Well you will find that a lot of what you want is not available cos everybody in the universe has used up all the names that you would really like to use.
Where to look? Try www.GoDaddy.com at least for a place to start. I settled for an Ozi site www.Ezypages.com.au but what do I know.
Well I decide to sign up and off I go. The web builder at the other end wants to know what colour do I want the pages, what colour do I want the fonts (not all are available by the way, you take a chance if you stray off the norm) and how do I want to set up the pages.
So off to the World Wide Web again to check out other photographic sites (there are quite a few) and I finally come up with some sort of idea. All this information is related to the faceless person at the other end of wherever I am sending my e-mails; does anyone ever really know? And somehow a draft is agreed upon, e-mails are sent back and forth, some pics are sent to set up the pages and then I am now told I am “on the web”.
It looks like *%#$ and I am left to try to figure out how I am to add pics to the pages I have been allocated.
E-mail after e-mail trying to come to grips with the program is sent, information is related back to me and I am none the wiser, I feel like an idiot not understanding what (I suppose) is pretty simple to one who knows and thinking of asking my nine year old grand-daughter, kids know these things.
It took me two weeks.
It also took me to the point of desperation, when on a Friday night, after yet another night of frustration, I sent an e-mail stating that I had made a mistake, would go and do a uni degree in computer science and come back in a couple of years.
I was resigned to this fact and was at last feeling comfortable with myself once again and not having nightmares, when on the Sunday, again after a few bourbons, (I love the stuff) I decide to have “one more look”.
Have you ever had the experience of a haze just coming into view? Something clicking in your head, or a feeling of great relief, Well I have, it just hit me and I was off and running at least getting the site to a stage where I am not ashamed of it.
Have you ever noticed time stands still on the computer?
It was one o’clock in the morning when I decided I had done enough and should maybe go to bed; 5.00am came really quickly that day.
Do I know everything? Not a chance, but am I having fun? You bet.
Is it worth it? Well it was/is for me, it may not be perfect at this time, but it is a work in progress and now it gives me something extra to do with my images and gets me “out there”
Check it out and give me your opinion, good, bad or indifferent.
www.ajhfoto.com.au
Cheers
Jeff Hutchison
(President)